Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Mohammad Hashemi ¹
• Amir Maziar ²

¹ Ph.D. student of Philosophy of Art, Faculty of Law, Theology and Political Sciences, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

² Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy of Art, Faculty of Art Theories and Studies, Art University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

In Rhetorics, Aristotle introduced fear and pity as selfish and altruistic emotions that resulted in the unfortunate suffering caused by the unexpected occurrence of devastating calamities in the past or future for a good human being like us and better. These emotions occur in tragedy, which is the imitation of actions and life, in the same circumstances as described for life in Rhetorics. In tragedy, according to Aristotle, in Poetics, the arousal of fear and pity in the audience moderates these emotions and thus purifies them. This arousal of emotions is the result of the ignorance of the average virtuous character of the tragedy about the nature of his voluntary action during the plot of the tragedy, which is the result of the urgency of depriving the external goods and leads him to behavior in which the moral middle ground is not observed. This research seeks to answer the questions that Aristotle considers in the Poetics: First, how does moderating the selfish and altruistic aspects of the emotions of fear and pity satisfy the moral aspect of tragedy? Second, how do these emotions find a moral aspect by linking the arousal of fear and pity in the audience of tragedy and the character's ignorance of the nature of his actions? And thirdly, what is the relationship between the special character traits and the plot and the moral aspects of the emotions of fear and pity in tragedy?

Keywords

• Fear and pity
• Aristotle
• Poetics
• The moral middle ground
• Nichomacean ethics
• Rhetorics

Main Subjects

• moral philosophy